


The Haunted House Incident

by protectoroffaeries



Category: Skulduggery Pleasant - Derek Landy
Genre: Canon Compliant, I suppose, M/M, and neither of them ever mentioned it or thought about it again, maybe it happened between Dark Days and Mortal Coil, not sure if they're really shippy in this fic but whatever, not sure where it would go in canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-08
Updated: 2016-07-08
Packaged: 2018-07-22 07:55:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,643
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7426537
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/protectoroffaeries/pseuds/protectoroffaeries
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Scapegrace actually manages to kill someone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Haunted House Incident

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so the basic idea for this came from @shadedforests over on tumblr. So, obviously this one's for her. I'm going to be honest, I never really gave Scapegrace and Thrasher much thought before a couple days ago when I saw a picture on tumblr where Scapegrace was super good-looking?? I had a momentary crisis, and then my friend gave me the idea for this and here we are. 
> 
> I put the warning of graphic descriptions of violence not because it's actually that graphic, just because the ending turned out mildly disturbing. 
> 
> Someone does die in this fic, so that should definitely be on your radar. 
> 
> I will say it's been a long time since I read any of the scenes between Scapegrace and Thrasher, but I tried to keep them as true to the characters as I could remember. I hope I didn't mess that up!
> 
> Anyway, I hope you enjoy the fic! 
> 
> (Also, comments are always appreciated!)

Scapegrace was a _killer_ . He liked to _kill_ things. He wasn’t sure Thrasher really understood that, but then again, he wasn’t sure Thrasher understood much of anything. Because Thrasher was an idiot.

Scapegrace didn’t know why he kept Thrasher around. Just because he was technically Scapegrace’s first kill didn’t seem like a good enough reason. Were killers meant to be sentimental? Scapegrace didn’t think so.

“I got us jobs,” said Thrasher one afternoon while they were out searching for their next victim (okay, technically it was going to be their first victim that truly ended up dead).

“Jobs? We have jobs, Thrasher. We’re killers. At least, I am.”

Thrasher blinked, like he hadn’t understood a word Scapegrace had said. Idiot. “Well, um, killing doesn’t exactly pay well, so-”

“We don’t need to be paid. We can… we’ll take stuff from our victims. Money and such,” Scapegrace spontaneously declared.

“Okay, if that’s what you think is best, Master.” Thrasher sounded hesitant, which annoyed Scapegrace.

“It’s a great idea. Better than your job one. Who wants to work all day to kill someone just to go and work some more?”

“Well… with the jobs I got us, we could kill people and get paid for it,” Thrasher said. “But I can call the guy and tell him that things won’t work, if you’re against the idea.”

“Wait - you got us a job where we could kill people? Like as hitmen?” Scapegrace considered the idea. Being a hitman sure sounded exciting… people would quake with fear when they heard they were being targeted by the Zombie King, the Killer Supreme. But then Scapegrace realized that he wouldn’t be killing for himself that way, and he decided that he need to do things for himself. That was where happiness came from, he was pretty sure. He read it somewhere, at least.

“No, sir, um, I got us jobs at a haunted house.”

“A haunted house.”

“Yes, Master.”

“They don’t actually kill people at haunted houses, you moron! They’re just for scaring kids!”

Thrasher shook his head, and Scapegrace scowled. What did Thrasher know? Nothing about haunted houses, apparently.

“I thought… well, Master, I thought that maybe we could kill people at the haunted house, so everyone else thought it was just part of the act?”

“Thrasher don’t be ridiculous,” Scapegrace paused. “I know what we could do, though. We could actually kill people at that haunted house, and all the patrons would just think we’re pretending. It’s a good thing I’m around to make use of your mistakes.” Scapegrace put on what he thought was a very confident look.

Thrasher sighed. “Very well, Master.”

*** 

The haunted house was not far from the city, so they took Thrasher’s car, a piece of junk, in Scapegrace’s opinion, over to check it out. It was nearly Halloween, so there were hordes of people there, lined up outside. Scapegrace looked them over as discreetly as he could (which wasn’t particularly discreet at all, judging by the looks they were getting in return) to see if he could find one that would be a worthy victim. He had standards.

“Gerald… and, um, Vaurien?” asked a balding fat man when they got inside the house. It’d looked spooky and scary until the man had led them into the rather sunshiney back office. It was too hot in there.

“Yes, that’s us,” Thrasher told him, chipper as ever. Scapegrace rolled his eyes.

“And you think you’d make good zombies?”

“Oh, I know we would,” answered Thrasher, winking at Scapegrace in an unsubtle manner.

“Right,” the balding fat man said, like he didn’t actually think that real live zombies would make good pretend zombies. So dumb. “You can find makeup in the next room. It should be all laid out for you. Your shift starts in thirty minutes.”

The balding fat man ushered them into the makeup room, which was also too bright and too hot to be all that scary. He slammed the door behind them. Scapegrace and Thrasher were the only two in there amongst all the wigs and fake blood.

“That’s it?” grumbled Scapegrace. “No training?”

“Well, we aren’t actually going to be working… do we really need it?”

“That’s hardly the point.”

Scapegrace had no idea how to put on makeup. Makeup was for girls. Scapegrace was not, regardless of how many times he’d been called one as a child, a girl. Still, that lack of knowledge seemed to help him. He looked like an absolute mess by the time he was done.

Thrasher’s makeup actually looked kind of nice, if not a bit bloody. Scapegrace ignored that as much as he could.

“Thrasher, hurry up,” Scapegrace said as Thrasher checked his zombie makeup once last time.

“Sorry, Master.” And then, they were ready to kill.

***

Well, not actually ready. They didn’t have anything to kill with, unless a fake chainsaw did. Scapegrace did not count the fake chainsaw, although he would admit he could probably beat someone to death with it if he tried hard enough.

“Thrasher, why didn’t you think of murder weapons?” hissed Scapegrace while they were waiting for people to jump out and scare.

“I thought… you said you were always prepare to kill…”

“I _am_ always prepared. I just need tools.”

“I thought _prepared_ meant-”

“Yeah, well, that’s what you get for trying to think.”

Scapegrace sighed.  

“Well, I suppose I could go find a real knife…”

“Yes, go!”

Thrasher scurried off to go and find a knife - there had to be a real one in this goddamn place. Meanwhile, Scapegrace got to deal with the people. It was a little fun, scaring those people, but once one woman hit him over the head with her handbag and a small boy kicked him in the shin, Scapegrace was about done playing.

Thrasher appeared not long after the kick in the shin with a real butcher’s knife. Scapegrace didn’t ask how or where he’d gotten it. He didn’t really care, quite honestly.

“Who are you going to kill, Master?” Thrasher asked in a very poor attempt at whispering. Luckily, the nearby people thought it was part of the haunted house bit.

Scapegrace surveyed the cluster of people in front of him. They were kind of difficult to see between the dark lighting and the fake cobwebs and all, but he managed to make out the shape of a teenage girl who reminded him of Valkyrie Cain.

Scapegrace put on a what he thought to be an eerie voice. “How about you right there?” He pointed to the girl, and she and the boy next to her giggled and laughed, which wasn’t exactly what Scapegrace was going for, but whatever. She was about to die, anyway.

“Thrasher! Bring her to me,” barked Scapegrace.

Thrasher scrambled to do Scapegrace’s bidding. He grabbed the girl by the arm.

“Hey!” she shouted.

“Sorry, sorry,” he apologized, visibly loosening his grip. Scapegrace facepalmed, which caused more people to giggle, including his next victim.

“Thrasher, just bring her here,” he repeated impatiently. Thrasher led the girl by the arm away from the group and toward Scapegrace.

“Aren’t you guys not supposed to be touching us?” asked one man uncertainly as they walked.

“Yeah, I thought they said something about that in the beginning,” a woman agreed, sounding nervous.

“This… this is the exception. This girl agreed to this separately in the beginning,” Scapegrace lied.

“What?” said the girl. She looked more like Valkyrie Cain now that she was closer, except she wasn’t as in shape. But she had the dark hair, about the same length. Scapegrace could imagine she was Cain. “I didn’t agree-”

Before she could finished her sentence, Scapegrace stepped forward and slit her throat with the knife. She gurgled, panicked, but couldn’t get any words out before she dropped to the floor and bled out.

The group looked stunned. Scapegrace felt stunned. Then, they all started applauding, abate the boy who the girl had come with, who seemed to be muttering _“Katie… Katie,”_ under his breath, his panic building with every repetition.

“You did it, Master!” Thrasher said gleefully. “You really did it!”

“I did, didn’t I?” Scapegrace snapped from his own surprise. Of course he did it. He was the Zombie King, the Killer Supreme. He could do anything.

“You killed Katie!” The boy had apparently regained enough composure to vocalize the truth of what had just happened.

“What?"

“Wasn’t that just part of the experience?”

“It did seem a little weird, even for a haunted house…”

“Oh my God, they actually murdered that girl!”

Scapegrace and Thrasher exchanged a look, and then both of them booked it toward the exit. Or tried to, anyway. Thrasher wasn’t exactly in shape… and Scapegrace. Well, Scapegrace wasn’t fast. It wasn’t his fault, really.

They escaped anyway, though, because everyone was too busy freaking out to stop them.

“You really killed that girl,” Thrasher said, sounding awed, once they’d made it far enough away from the haunted house.

“Of course I did. I kill all sorts of things. I killed you, didn’t I?”

“Well, yeah, but that girl… you didn’t bite her. She’s going to stay dead. Forever.”

Scapegrace thought about that. The girl had been kind of young. And death was pretty permanent, especially in mortals. But then he remembered how much like Cain she’d looked, and all the trouble _Cain_ had caused him. He didn’t feel as bad afterwards.

“That’s the point of killing people. That and,” Scapegrace held up the butcher’s knife, “art, of course. C’mon, let’s find a piece of paper to splatter this on before all the blood dries.”

“Sir… that’s a little disturbing....”

“No, Thrasher. This is being an artistic murderer.”

“I didn’t think that’s really what you meant when you said-”

  
“What else would ‘making killing an art form’ mean?” Scapegrace rolled his eyes. “Idiot.”


End file.
